Presentation at The Online, Open and Flexible Higher Education Conference, Universita Telematica, Rome, Italy, 20th October.

1. Why the Many are Smarter than the Few
Applications and Aspirations of Crowdsourcing for Education
Image: https://pixabay.com/en/grandstand-toys-males-child-330930/ (CC0)
Dr. Enda Donlon Prof. Mark Brown Dr. Eamon Costello

2. Simply defined, crowdsourcing represents the act
of a company or institution taking a function once
performed by employees and outsourcing it to an
undefined (and generally large) network of people
in the form of an open call. This can take the form
of peer-production (when the job is performed
collaboratively), but is also often undertaken by
sole individuals. The crucial prerequisite is the
use of the open call format and the large network
of potential laborers.
Jeff Howe, 2006,
http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/cs/2006/06/cro
wdsourcing_a.html
Crowdsourcing
“Simply defined, crowdsourcing
represents the act of a company
or institution taking a function
once performed by employees
and outsourcing it to an
undefined (and generally large)
network of people in the form of
an open call
[...]
The crucial prerequisite is the
use of the open call format and
the large network of potential
laborers.”
- Jeff Howe, 2006
http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/cs/2006/06/crowdsourcing_a.html
Image: Joi Ito https://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/15785885631 (CC BY 2.0)

3. Crowdsourcing is not new
Hossain & Kauranen (2015)
1884: Oxford English
Dictionary uses 800
contributors to
catalogue words
1936: Kiichiro Toyoda
crowdsources logo for
car company (27,000
submissions)
Image: https://pixabay.com/en/audience-crowd-people-persons-828584 (CCO)

4. Estellés-Arolas and González-
Ladrón-de-Guevara (2012)
40 definitions: 8 attributes common to any crowdsourcing
initiative
1. the crowd
2. the task at hand
3. the recompense obtained
4. the crowdsourcer or initiator of the crowdsourcing
activity
5. what is obtained by them following the crowdsourcing
activity
6. the type of process
7. the call to participate
8. the medium
Image: https://pixabay.com/en/people-crowd-concert-show-691777 (CCO)

5. Crowdsourcing in Education - why?
- access to a potentially global range and diversity of locations,
opinions and problem-solving options; provides a means of
voicing opinions that otherwise would not be shared; brings
together communities of interest and concern (Paulin &
Haythornthwaite, 2016)
- assimilate many small contributions into resources of high quality
(Cornelli & Mikroyannidis, 2012)
- offers new ways of envisioning student involvement in the
classroom (c/f students as producers) (Hills, 2015)
- dissemination, negotiation and evaluation of scholarship
(Veletsianos, 2013).
Image: https://pixabay.com/en/mass-people-supporters-1355493 (CC0)

6. http://project252.donenda.com
@proj252
#proj252
Case Study 1

7. 26 X 2 = 52
26 Letters, 52 Weeks, 1 Year

8. Irish Times: 14 April 2015 (http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/our-top-50-education-apps-1.2170272)

9. Open Participation

12. @proj252
Regular updates (new letter, last day,
milestones (100, 500, etc.)
Automated tweets when new submission
approved - automatically tagged with
#proj252, #edchatie, #edchat, #ukedchat,
#aussieed
Open Attribution

13. 677
Contributions
96
Contributors
(+ 29 anonymous)
26
Mean / Letter

14. 69627
contribution views
(4th Jan 2016)
137012
contribution views
(16th Oct 2016)
111+
countries
Open to All

15. Usage Keywords
Open Tagging

16. Open Across Education Levels

17. http://project252.donenda.com

18. Case Study 2
http://studentsuccess.ie
@FLSuccess

19. The aim of the Student Success Toolbox is to support transitions from thinking
about study to the first weeks to increase retention and completion rates
particularly for flexible learners (undergraduate adult, part-time and
online/distance students).

20. Tool 7
Study Tips
for Me

21. Formally launched September 2016
33 Study Tips and growing

22. Crowdsourcing:
What have we learned?
- enables access to a diverse range of contributions and
a wide geographical base
- the effectiveness of web-based technologies and in
particular social networking tools and platforms in
facilitating the collation and dissemination of
contributions
- the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
- Peer review and quality assurance
Image: https://pixabay.com/en/fireworks-pyrotechnics-crowd-people-918892/ (CC0)

23. “The demonstrable advantage
of such open approaches to
data gathering for specific
projects is leading to this being
an increasingly popular
methodology. The problem for
such projects is in gaining
sufficient contributions, and
knowing how to promote this
and generate appropriate
levels of interest will become a
relevant research skill…”
Crowdsourcing and Openness - next?
Martin Weller, The Digital Scholar, 2011, p. 61
Image: http://blog.edtechie.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/MEOUWCARD-52.jpg

24. Thank You!
Go raibh maith
agaibh!